Business Highlights

Electronic Arts said it expects net revenue and earnings per share to be "well below” its own guidance issued in November as well as Wall Street expectations. The changes are primarily the result of unanticipated market declines in both North America and Europe, the company said.

"Holiday sales are not meeting expectations,” said Larry Probst, Electronic Arts’ chairman and chief executive. "For the December quarter, it is likely the industry will be down double digits on a percentage basis.”

The Redwood City, Calif.-based company, the world’s largest video game publisher, offered no further details. It makes video game titles such as "Madden NFL 06” and "The Godfather,” a highly anticipated game due to be released in early 2006.

In November, Electronic Arts had offered a cautious outlook for the third quarter, saying it expected earnings of $1.15-to-$1.25 per share on revenue between $1.465 billion and $1.575 billion. Excluding some charges, it expected earnings to be between $1.18 and $1.28 — well below analyst then-expectations of $1.43 a share.

Chiron shareholder opposes Novartis deal

SAN FRANCISCO — A major Chiron Corp. shareholder plans to vote against the company’s proposed acquisition by Novartis AG, saying Tuesday that the offer price is too low. ValueAct Capital, which said it owns 9.8 million shares, or 5 percent of Chiron, called Novartis’ $45-per-share bid "tantamount to stealing the company.”

"Thanks to its position on Chiron’s board, Novartis had access to insider information which clearly indicated — to them but to no other public shareholder — that Chiron was worth far more than its depressed market price at the time of the initial Novartis offer,” said G. Mason Morfit, a ValueAct partner.

In October, Novartis agreed to buy the remaining 56 percent of Chiron’s stock it didn’t already own, and touted the deal as a 23 percent price premium.

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Spam on decline: Those annoying "spam” e-mails for Viagra or low-rate mortgages that clog computer users’ mailboxes appear to be on the decline, federal regulators said Tuesday.

In a report to Congress, the Federal Trade Commission said the anti-spam law that took effect two years ago has helped curb unsolicited e-mail. The report also credits advances in technology, such as better spam filters that weed out junk e-mail.

The report was met with some skepticism.

"For us, we have not seen one single instance where spam has actually gone down,” said Jordan Ritter, co-founder of Cloudmark, an e-mail security firm based in San Francisco.